“We don’t have much time” – Pep Guardiola outlines pressures of Manchester City rebuild | OneFootball

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has explained the challenges of leading a new-look dressing room to winning silverware in the coming months.

The Blues recruited heavily last summer and after adding Antoine Semenyo and Marc Guehi to their ranks in January, it remains to be seen whether City can fulfil their silverware aspirations following a poor run of results in the Premier League.

Guardiola’s side have won just one of their last six league games and after Arsenal extended their lead at the top of the table to nine points on Saturday, City must beat Liverpool at Anfield on Sunday to stay in the title race.

City’s recent slump, according to Guardiola, has come partly as a result of very few players at his disposal who have been at the club long enough to truly understand and execute his demands on the pitch – an inevitable happening at a nascent stage of a squad revamp.

Speaking ahead of Sunday’s visit to Anfield, Guardiola assessed how well Manchester City are now doing from a stability point of view and coping with things going against them in big games. “I think we are not far (away),” the Catalan said.

“At the same time, with the absences in the good periods of the season, when we won seven, eight or nine games, the back four was the same all the time, with Mathues (Nunes), Ruben (Dias), Josko (Gvardiol) and Nico (O’Reilly).

“And after, with the injuries, of course, we had to rotate and (now) the same because (Abdukodir) Khusanov has been outstanding – and Marc (Guehi) since he arrived and now Rayan Ait-Nouri in the last games as well.

“Sometimes the back four is what gives a more consistent team, when you have more stability in that. But I think we are not far away, but not just the back four, because many things have changed in the way we defend. It’s a process, like it’s nice to live it.

“In a rebuild time, sometimes it’s refreshing your mind, ‘Ah how we can do it, new players, how you help him do that’. But unfortunately, we don’t have much time. You have to do it immediately, quick and sometimes you need a little bit more time.”

On whether Manchester City are trying to build the stable core of the team again, where there are consistent starters, the 55-year-old added: “Yes, still we don’t have that. When everybody knows what’s going to happen; I remember the year of the treble and the last two or three months (the same) starting 11 all the time.

“And Julian (Alvarez) came in and Riyad (Mahrez) and the central defenders, and everybody knows already with Gundo (Ilkay Gundogan), with Rodri, with Kevin (De Bruyne), with Bernardo (Silva) on sides. But that is a process, it didn’t come for the years of the treble or quadruple immediately one day. It was years, years, years to do that.

“And now we changed a lot. That’s why sometimes I said, ‘Okay, we can be better – yeah’. I have the feeling right now that for nothing we’ll not be closer in the Premier League, for nothing. It belongs to us.

“Don’t misunderstand me – when the people; maybe I can be a little bit uncomfortable with the referees’ statements, it’s belonged absolutely to us because when we miss chances and we make it, that is ourselves.

“And it could be there, but at the same time I said, ‘Wow’, maybe we could not expect with the problems we have in the injuries, with the rebuild of a lot of players in the last transfer window, in the winter time and this summer, we didn’t have time for training.

“To rebuild many things in that time, training we had at the (Club) World Cup, finish, holidays in one or two weeks, start the league, Wolves, and many things still were not really connected. So I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next weeks, the next month, so maybe it could be worse. You’re right. That’s why we try to be a positive way of the things and go.”

City are expected to be as active in the upcoming summer transfer window as they were last summer, with a new midfield addition on the agenda amid a strong interest in Nottingham Forest and England star Elliot Anderson.